We Have Nothing to Fear….an anonymous post

The following is from a former student in response to a forwarded message re Trump:

Reviewing all that you forwarded demonstrates enormous insight.It would seem to me that more from psychiatry and sociology would be in order.To wit,we were required to read Civilization and its Discontents in your course and I recall 50 years later a statement therein to the effect that the overwhelming history of mankind has been governed by dictatorships.

Concurrently, we were reading an assignment in George Huaco’s course on social theory and more specifically,Karl Marx who often wrote that capitalism would sow the seeds of its own destruction. What the Clinton campaign should be doing is hiring some retired psychiatrists and psychologists from the CIA to profile Trump and treat him as a foreign dictator in their analysis.It is obvious that he is well into a course of psychiatric dissembling.

And all of this after so much analysis with studies like Adorno et al’s,TheAuthoritarian Personality as well as that of Harold Laswell 80 years ago.All of which suggests that the next 90 days will allow for an outstanding empirical analysis of just how far we have come in the last century or whether Freud will be confirmed once again.

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3 Comments

There are many reasons for concern. Susanna has presented some hypotheses as to Trump’s character that ring true. But I would argue that his persona is more complicated than these ideas reveal. There is a deep level of respect, and love too, given to him by a highly functional, stable family. A deep empathy seems to exist between Trump, his children, and those identified to be of the working class. Many who have known and have worked with Trump echo the family’s sentiments, thus indicating a man who in many of his relationships possesses and exudes from others a serious degree of honor. Trump has experienced not only failure but success too in the complicated world of creative, large scale construction. To have achieved under-budget completions of any large construction project is close to miraculous measured by today’s standards. Can any large government-directed project make such a claim?
But, don’t think that those who value original intent are happy with Trump as their representative. There is in his approach a level of authoritarianism that is anathema to the divided power, limited government, required to incentivize us to the greatest blended and balanced productivity. Trump is at ease taking a low road which includes personal insults, libel and slander. But that road has worked well for the Democrats who “Borked” Bork, and have for generations demonized Republicans as being racist, bigoted, homo-phobic, and sexist (among other disgusting things). The fact that these low roads garner votes speaks poorly not only about those who use them, but speaks poorly about those who believe them. It is reasonable for Democrats to be worried.
So, we have a choice between the most socialist party ever presented to the American people and a “wild-card”, possible authoritarian, who prioritizes nationalism. It is hard to believe that the idea that was the original America can survive a majority of lifetime Supreme Court Justices who believe in a “living constitution”. It is unlikely that that exceptional idea will survive a massive increase in the number of voters who become shackled to a socialist master government. For those who value original intent, the choice is between a highly certain loss and a possible loss. The weakened spark of the original idea that was America is more likely to survive the acknowledged risks of a Trump Presidency.